News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 150 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.

Tuesday, 1 January 2013

New Year ramble

First a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all my
readers.

The picture is just a sketch of some of the children who
were here yesterday evening, we have been entertaining family and friends over
the Christmas and New Year period and I have just taken a blog writing break
while everyone else plays poker, or with their thesis.

First the pinch and a punch business from my webstats, here
is the link http://michaelsbookshop.com/laptop113/
this is only significant to other Thanet bloggers, but roughly forms a
popularity chart.

Staying with the theme for a mo; do you say?

A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month:

A punch and a kick for being so quick.

A stamp on the toe for being so slow.

Perhaps someone says, “no returns.”

Or how about; a flick and a kick, or, a punch and a blow.

Does anyone say, “white Rabbit.”

There is surprisingly little about this either on the net or
in the obvious reference works, Brewer doesn’t mention it at all.

One important anniversary today, it’s forty years since we
joined The Common Market, later to become the EEC, European union or whatever.

Perhaps forty years are enough, it is certainly looking as
though the top European politicians are looking to put together some sort of
inferior membership for the UK as we seem to be looking for a reduced level of
membership.

I am trying to learn to use acrylic paint at the moment, the
main problem seems to be stopping it going hard on the palette when you want to
stop, I have modified a culinary implement to this end.

A quick sketch of the poker players, ink isn’t very
forgiving before ones hand and eye decide to cooperate.

John Holyer has just emailed me the picture I took
from the Eastcliff the other day, which he has adjusted.

Here is the original one.

and here the modified one

The business with the acrylic paint worked, the paint is
sitting on wet kitchen roll round the edge of the dish, two fairly wet kitchen
sponges in the dish with clingfilm over it and 48 hours later the paint is
still perfectly ok to paint with.

Leaving it out on an ordinary palette and after about four
hours it would have only been fit for the bin.

Painting with it is another matter, I may require
lessons, the cheapest thing to paint acrylic on seems to be thick watercolour
paper, you paint the back of the paper with acrylic paint to stop it curling
up, then turn it over and slap it on the front.

This is cerulean blue at the top, yellow ochre
at the bottom the two colours loosely mixed on the paper in the middle. The
paint behaves differently to watercolour more going on the paper than going in
the paper.

9 comments:

Yep, that's similar to how I keep acrylics usable. I also use greaseproof paper on top of the damp bed of kitchen roll, with the paint on the greaseproof. When I'm done, throw away the greaseproof and the kitchen roll can be used again.Also, putting the covered palette in the fridge helps extend the paint's life (as long as it doesn't freeze) but allow to return to room temperature before use.

Talking about flights over Thanet, which were weren't but will no doubt do again some day. Here is a sound that was once briefly familiar over Thanet, thank God. To me this evocative sound is soporific and has a beauty, such that one could almost make love to the music.

The thought of your wrinkly undercarriage being exposed for a soft landing has put me off my tea John. A nice trip down memory lane though for the few remaining older RAF types in Thanet. And the engine noise.

Nothing ever happened with night flights other than the councillors always agreeing to them (as now with KLM) even when banned, or Infratil and TDC removing the monitors to play the noise-what-noise-we-have-no-records game.

A Police investigation will bring it all out into the open rather than councillor and civil servant collusion for cover-up.

Acrylic is generally better used in a buttery consistency as an oil paint alternative, than as a highly watered down watercolour substitute where the pigment particles are liable to show, either that or use an extender. Nice to see your acrlyic tests, it does have a habit of drying quickly.

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The old pictures of Ramsgate shops should expand with a bit of clicking although some of the pictures are larger than others, so it w...

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Much of the local history I publish is available for free on this blog, in some cases I have linked whole books to blog postings, if you want a printed copy of one of the books I publish click here postage is free to UK addresses.

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